1968 - 50 years later

Reporters were also beaten at the DNC Convention for President.

1968 had its compensations.

I'd heard all the stories about '68. Yeah, it sucked.

My dad, though, died in '67 so ...anything after that was not going to be as bad.

Martin Luther King Jr. assasination report...

Robert Kennedy assassination report...

Lee Harvey Oswald.

James Earl Ray.

Sirhan Sirhan.

You have to wonder which of these assassins were paid operatives.

You WATCHED it, OP ?

I LIVED IT !

So tell us about it, R7.

I met Robert Kennedy very briefly April 1968 in Philadelphia. If I had time to talk, I would have asked him about supporting the war while his brother was president, and turning against it by 1968. Glad he did so. But it undercut his "hero" persona

Another brilliant compensation.

I can't believe that "2001: A Space Odyssey" was made in 1968.

It was way ahead of its time.

It also should have won an Academy Award.

Forever Changes was released late in 1967, which made it part of the soundtrack of my life in 1968.

And later, the White Album

An odd mix of "Hey, Jude." Very 1968.

The United States of America

New York Rock & Roll Ensemble

Those were exciting times.

Today's "Breaking News" doesn't even come close to what took place in 1968.

1968 is also the year of one of Rock and Roll's greatest comebacks.

Having a Russian asset in the White House doesn't come close?

Can you imagine if the presumptive Democratic nominee for President was killed by a guy with a Muslim name?

Today's 24/7 media would be going ape shit!

I was a bleeding heart liberal college student in 1968 (still bleeding heart liberal but long removed from school). So I [kind of] was right in the midst of it all. Also, personal note: I dated the brother of one of the kids shot at Kent State; he survived and his family got beaucoup bucks from their lawsuit.

Even Richard Nixon called it a "watershed year," and he was right in the midst of it.

Something was definitely up in 1968.

[quote] Can you imagine if the presumptive Democratic nominee for President was killed by a guy with a Muslim name?

1968 to 2018. It's an unbroken chain. SIrhan hated Kennedy because he had voted for the authorization to sell F-4s to the Israeli Air Force.

I remember thinking the same things that I think today,

what is happening? the world has lost it and everyone has gone crazy. The assassinations were really terrible but the scariest was when we started shooting our own people (Kent state) that was terrifying.

1967- Monterrey, Summer of Love, Sgt. Pepper

1968- Riots, MLK RFK assassinations, Vietnam

1969-Moon Landing, Woodstsock

1970- Kent State, Altamont

I'm a Canadian so we were quite tame in comparison in 1968.

However it was the years I bought my very first record, a vinyl 45 single "Theme From The Valley Of The Dolls" on Scepter Records by Dionne Warwick. Still have it and lots of other vinyl in my large vinyl collection.

R26 50 years ago! It went by fast.

"Hey Jude" by The Beatles. The #1 best selling single of 1968 and their biggest hit as well. #1 for 9 weeks.

I should have added that the war was horrendous. We didn't have social media, the internet, etc. At that time everything was a secret. Most of the time we had no idea what was going on. It was the first war to be televised and we were horrified. It was easy to be able not to relate to it because it was so far away but when the pictures started coming in it was awful. This is why there were so many protests. If someone went missing in action it took forever for a family to be notified. communication was very slow then compared to today. It was a different time.

The draft was done according to your birthday. I can't remember if it was every week or once a month but on Monday evening they would choose a month and a day, like picking a lottery number, and if that date was your birthday you had just been drafted. It was a war that never ended. People had a sheet of paper in their windows if there was someone in the service. If it was white with a star in the center then they had someone in the service. If the paper was black with a star then someone had been in the service but had died in the war. I hated seeing those papers in peoples windows because you knew most had had no choice.

What country, r30?

I had a friend that was on a ship that was bombed and was featured in Life magazine. They threw all the dead bodies into a room on the ship. They threw my friend in there because he was almost dead and they didn't think he would make it. The next morning someone went into that room on the ship and my friend was still alive so they took care of him.

Another friend was injured and had his penis blown off and they had to rebuild it and miraculously it worked and he had kids later on. He always suffered terribly from Agent Orange though and had the most terrible scars. So, so many suffered from PTSD but that wasn't even a thing yet so they weren't really treated for it. It was a terrible war. So many died. So many missing.

My draft/lottery number was 68. But I lucked out by being in college from '70-'74 so I had a student deferment. By the time I got out, they weren't drafting anymore.

r31 ? the draft? the US

r34 I didn't think they did draft numbers until 1969 or 1970, and that everyone got theirs on the same day.

I don't remember when they started, but I remember watching the dates being drawn because my ex was drafted 3x's but each time he was given a deferment

My friend Bobby (RIP, Night Nurse) was a 20 year-old Army nurse stationed at Letterman Hospital in the Presidio in 1968. The hospital was where they shipped a lot of guys with gruesome injuries on their way home from Vietnam. Few, he said, made it all the way home - too many died before being discharged or transferred. They were the cream of American youth then because apart from Private Bonespurs, the lottery was in sense a lot more democratic than today's volunteer military - they took everyone. City kids, farm boys, black and white, banker's sons and bus driver's kids, too - more of 'em poor but still, some of the rich kids, too. It was a different country then.

In the 1990's we were in San Francisco together one weekend when I drove through there with him; maybe 25 years after his service. They were just starting to redevelop it then. He recognized some of the buildings and telling me about that time in his life had him close to tears. He was a mad, mad queen - Nurse Jackie long before her time - but things he said that day made me understand some of what he'd seen and had to do and perhaps a little bit about why he was who he was. One memory made him smile, though: he told me not a single one of 'em ever refused a blowjob. And that he gave a lot of bjs working there.

The CNN series had Robert Kennedy as a senator from Massachusetts! And ABC's longtime foreign correspondent John Scali, who was used an intermediary during the Cuban Missile Crisis & later served as UN Ambassador, was listed as John Scalley.

[quote]The CNN series had Robert Kennedy as a senator from Massachusetts!

Holy anti-Semitic Bronxville, Rosemary.

The circumstances of RFK's assassination feel like something out of a novel. He had just won the California primary; he had made that stirring plea for peace in Indianapolis on the night of MLK's death mere weeks earlier; his own brother had been assassinated by gunshot four years earlier. It's spooky.

R37 You made me tear up.

I was living up by Harlem and I remember worrying about riots after MLK died but it wasn't that bad. The draft had a tremendous effect Once it ended a lot of people's political involvement ended as well. Nothing today really comes close to realizing the government could send you to die at 18. Abortion was also illegal in the U S so again it was the government against the young.

I was in high school. It was a year of ups and downs, big new stories every week. Change was coming, you could feel it. I sent time on a university campus and the excitement was there. You could smell it, taste it. It was in the music, too. It was one helluva time. Things quieted down a bit in 1969, but the ant-war movement got stronger. The in 1970 Kent and Jackson state unversities and Sterling Hall killed the movement. It was never the same, not really.

More, please

After the assassinations of King and Kennedy there was a feeling of hopelessness but there was still a war going on and it is probably what saved us. People were protesting everywhere and whether you participated or could only watch it on tv there was an energy in the air that you could literally feel everywhere. You knew you were living thru big changes and history. On one side it was horrifying and on the other it was exciting.

Great music was created during this time but there were also too many drugs. It seemed like everyone was high all the time. I did realize recently that we wouldn't have had the music from that era without the drugs and so many things would have been different. They would even report about the drug usage among the soldiers in Vietnam. Many people have always lived with drugs being around them but until I was in high school they were unheard of especially among young people. Drugs did not become popular until around 1964/5 when I lived on Long Island.

I have always said that I thought I lived thru one of the best/worst times in history.

Robert Kennedy was not necessarily the presumptive nominee in 1968. Humphrey might have received the nomination, even with McCarthy and Kennedy as viable choices at the convention. However, I was in Vietnam during the Democratic Convention.

I'm wondering if Kennedy managed to win the nomination if he could have defeated Nixon?

The CNN documentary on 1968 was interesting R46 and R47, because it showed that Kennedy had lost the Oregon Primary, right before he was assassinated.

He worked hard in LA, and won the California Primary, and thus all their votes.

I think that he would have beat Nixon, just on the basis that people were nostalgic for his brother.

However, once he was killed, people had had enough of all the traumatic events of the year. Nixon made a speech about how Humphrey represented the past and all the old policies (which implied that all the bad things happening that year were because of Democrats), and that he would bring badly needed "change."

Of course, Nixon won.

As a teenager I worked on Kennedy's Senate campaign in NY. I remember going to the campaign headquarters and seeing Steven Smith who was his brother in law and the campaign manager. Very handsome. RFK was there one day as well but then it was a madhouse. My entire contribution to the campaign was standing on a street corner screaming vote for Kennedy into a megaphone. Even as a teen, I knew I was annoying as hell. I felt sorry for everyone who had to listen to me but most people were nice about it.

Year my so so fucking cunt crazy sister was born. Trouble, trouble, trouble. Known in the family as Mrs. Bin Laden. Enough said.

MLK was a CIA agent whose 'job' was to stir caca that would 'justify' total Federal (aka Federal Reserve) dominatia of the South by military force. When his assignment was completed they 'retired' him.

Some say RFK was a sizemeat but eminent sizemologist Truman Capote said just the opposite!

[quote]Of course, Nixon won.

SPOILER ALERT!

I was 10 years old and took my 1s plane ride on this! It was a very good year!

I dated an Army medic - who was just back from Vietnam. 1970 - not 68. He had a big drinking problem. The one story he told me was about the boys who died in his arms. He said every one of them -mentioned their mother in their last words.

The Beatles “White Album” came to perfectly represent the era. Sprawling, chaotic, fractured, divisive. I read Jann Wenners original review recently from “Rolling Stone” great read and fascinating.

We lived very close to the DC line and my father worked in the city. There were curfews because of the riots and my father put his rifle in his bedroom as he was worried that it would spill into the burbs. I knew an older man that owned a liquor store in the city and his said that the first buildings that were burned were the small grocery and liquor stores as their tabs would go up in smoke.

[quote] . But it undercut his "hero" persona

That wasn't all that did. Should have asked him about his close relationship with Joe McCarthy. Even as a teenager I thought he was opportunist and I didn't trust that. My family was involved in the civil rights movement and the Kenendy brothers weren't exactly heroes.

The first lottery was December 1969 which included 19 yos to 25 yos - those born 1944 thru 1950. They were used for calling up the next year. 1951 births were in the next lottery 6 months later, July 1970. They changed how they selected the lottery numbers.

Then thru the next 5 years they did a lottery each year for the succeeding birth years. My brother's birth year, 1953, was in the 1972 lottery. I remember very well he got a high number - in the high 200s. We were very relieved. Actually the 1972 drawn numbers were never used for induction because the authorization for induction expired in June 1973 - tho some guys did get called for physicals.

The first Number One lottery birthdate was September 14. (for those born 1944 - 1950) The second Number One lottery birthday was July 9 (those born July 9, 1951).

It was a scary time.

[quote] the Kenendy brothers weren't exactly heroes.

Very true. The whitewsah of "Camalot" painted over many sins and failings. Frank Herbert in part wrote "Dune" as a reaction to JFK.

HERBERT: There is definitely an implicit warning, in a lot of my work, against big government . . . and especially against charismatic leaders. After all, such people-well-intentioned or not-are human beings who will make human mistakes. And what happens when someone is able to make mistakes for 200 million people? The errors get pretty damned BIG!

For that reason, I think that John Kennedy was one of the most dangerous presidents this country ever had. People didn't question him. And whenever citizens are willing to give unreined power to a charismatic leader, such as Kennedy, they tend to end up creating a kind of demigod . . . or a leader who covers up mistakes—instead of admitting them—and makes matters worse instead of better. Now Richard Nixon, on the other hand, did us all a favor.

PLOWBOY: You feel that Kennedy was dangerous and Nixon was good for the country?

HERBERT: Yes, Nixon taught us one hell of a lesson, and I thank him for it. He made us distrust government leaders. We didn't mistrust Kennedy the way we did Nixon, although we probably had just as good reason to do so. But Nixon's downfall was due to the fact that he wasn't charismatic. He had to be sold just like Wheaties, and people were disappointed when they opened the box.

--------------

Humphrey would have been an excellent president. It's a pity so many Americans back then invested themselves in the restoration of the "rightful" monarch to replace LBJ the usurper.

I was 6 that year, not in grade school yet because my birthday falls toward the end of the year. We lived on a military base and Dad was in Vietnam. I was too little to understand what was going on in the world, but I remember Mom turning the TV off a lot and a lot of intense conversations between her and other deployed men's wives, a lot of smoking in the kitchen after we were in bed.

At the end of the year, the Apollo 8 Lunar Mission orbited the moon and broadcast the image of the earthrise over the lunar horizon, maybe the most magnificent image in the history of photography. Fewer than 20 men have seen it firsthand, but all of humanity was able to stop and contemplate it and our place in the universe. Mom said later that was what she ultimately remembered that year:

Great dramatization from the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon:

Celine Dion was born in 1968.

Or you can watch as the world of 1968 watched it.

NA$A = trillion dollar scam that has been robbing the American taxslaver for decades.

That's quite a beautiful picture at R60.

And R58, that "death lottery" must have been terrifying for so many young men.

I would have had nightmares about it.

LBJ still controlled the party apparatus in '68, a year in which the great majority of delegates were selected outside the primary system, as there were only then a handful of primaries ( the caucus process had not yet started). There was no way the LBJ party regulars were going to hand over the nomination to Johnson's arch-nemesis. At 11, I saw RFK in person on May 15, 1968 (my sister got to shake his hand). Even at that tender age, I, like the poster before me, felt a great despair for my country at his death.

I think I need to see “Best of Enemies” again.

I think a lot of the rise of the right wing over the last 50 years is, in part, because of the uncertainty and chaos of that time.

I was a boy and not yet a teen so it was both horrifying and wonderful at the same time. It was all happening outside of my white suburban neighborhood and school.

Our Time magazine subscription and the news my father watched was all I knew of it.

Now I think jesus fucking christ I'm glad I wasn't any older. The entire world was having a collective nervous breakdown.

For those who grew up during that period, how does the overall atmosphere then compare to now? Social media obviously has upended society but is there a comparison that can be made between the generalized sense of fear and paranoia then and now?

Well men were being legally drafted into an illegal war and sent off to trained to fight a land war when the enemy was fighting a guerilla war on its own turf.

That alone makes it worse than today.

Imagine being in your late teens or early twenties and waiting for your draft card to travel halfway around the world to fight the Vietcong.

The president was as much a traitor then as he is today. But nobody is being forced to go to war.

R70

The paranoia is still with us, only now we direct it at each other instead of focusing on the efforts of Russians to divide us. Back in 1968, not many Americans were all that kindly disposed towards them. To me, it's difficult to understand in some ways if not others. The Soviets were our allies in WWII. It was a marriage of convenience ("The enemy of my enemy is my friend" at least for the duration) that fell apart by 1946. By the time the Soviet Union fell (1992) it was obvious even to them that their system hadn't worked.

The first time I was in Moscow in 1987, we saw military officers riding bicycles to and from work. They'd given up horses but couldn't afford cars. A phone call back to the States was a six or seven hour production with the women in the hotel's telephone office interrupting their marathon nail-filing sessions to schedule your call. I wondered then how they could transmit the order to launch the missiles to "destroy" us when they couldn't get a dial tone. The stores were pathetic with shelf after empty shelf. I saw meat hacked from the carcass of a steer in a butcher shop, wrapped in old newspaper, and sold the customers standing in line for hours.

I've been back there twice since in 2002 and 2007. The facades are prettier and Moscow and Petersburg now have at least a veneer of modernity, but the vast majority of Russian citizens still live in this sort of shitty housing to this day, 25 years after the end of communism. It'll take another 25 years, no major wars and no major drop in the price of oil to continue their progress towards achieving anything like the living standards enjoyed in Europe and North America today.

LBJ was said to be super horse-hung and had a very mysterious death.

We wonder if karma caught up with him, although he is still burning (happily) in hell with his master, Satan!

It was a horrible year but this year is even sadder.

It seemed like nothing would ever get better but we still had hope. When you get old, it is hard to have hope.

[quote]I've been back there twice since in 2002 and 2007.

Why? Why go there so often?

In 1968, it seemed as if things were on their way to getting better. I felt hope then. The draft needed to end, and eventually, it did. The war needed to end, and eventually, it did. I do not feel we are on a positive, hopeful trajectory any longer. War seems like a permanent state of being in the world now.

Well we know they did not take anyone who had bone spurs and they let rich boys fool around in the reserves.

My guy had number 240 something, after his deferment.

How was LBJ's death "mysterious," R73?! He had had heart problems since the mid-'50s, when he had his first heart attack, & his belief that he would follow the path of his male ancestors and die relatively young was one of the reasons he didn't seek re-election in '68.

[quote]But nobody is being forced to go to war.

Yet

"Does anyone here remember it?"

So the Baby Boomers ARE good for something, eh, OP? We should tell y'all to go read a book or three instead of offering personal anecdotes.

I see it's time to post this again:

Sadly, very few fish were killed, only men.

R79 If there were a draft today women would have to be included and they would have to go into combat.

Do you see people ever allowing this?

If men had the sense in the 60s to take advantage of the rise of feminism and the feminists demanded and protested and fought so that women join them in battle the war would have ended in no time.

I understand that men are still required to register for the draft and women are not. Why aren't men women fighting for this? How is this allowed?

Will someone please post the video for Paul Hardcastle’s “19” ?

Perfectly encapsulates in a (now) retro modern way of describing the horrors of the Vietnam War in a club track. It was a huge UK #1 hit.

People in the US had put their faith in spokespersons MLK nd JFK for civil rights advancements and stopping the Vietnam War. The assassination of both of these leaders dashed the hopes of that generation. Civil rights cause became stagnant and the Vietnam War raged on for 6 more years. The powers that be wanted the status quo to remain in place.

JFK wanted the Vietnam war. He started it and increased its forces. It became his war and he was an American president who was not going to lose it. He already put America in its most frightening moment in history with the Bay of Pigs and the subsequent nuclear showdown.

R75

Work. Which became untenable with the corruption.

I'm 66 so yeah I lived through it. Better than now. 9/11 2000 innocent civilians killed in terror attack. War in Afghanistan with an enemy we don't even understand. Taliban. Isis beheadings televised. Young men and women returning from war maimed and psychologically destroyed seeing their buddies cut in half by AR15 weapons. Land mines. Black men killed by police in record numbers with no recourse. Life so hopeless for many we have an opioids crisis. Trump Pence in WH. Levels of corruption never seen before. No personal freedoms. Corporations running government. Inequality at unbelievable rate. Clean air and water in jeopardy. The planet warming due ,in part, to human activity leading to extinction of humans. Closer to singularity. Yeah. Bitches call me a Mary Sue. But Kent state, VietNam and the rest were like a picnic in the park compared to today. Today the doomsday clock is closer to midnight than ever. Fuck.

[quote] JFK for civil rights advancements and stopping the Vietnam War

Boy, R85, do you need to read a book or two.

I echo R89's sentiments about R85. JFK was a reluctant convert to civil rights, and far from becoming stagnant after his death, great gains were realized under LBJ's leadership.

I was very young then but I remember Walter Cronkite always starting the evening news with Vietnam war footage and it was gritty and awful.

I remember my folks leaving the small black/white TV in their room on all night with the moon landing live broadcast. Usually, TV stations logged off at midnight. They slept with it on and woke up to it. The moon landing was a very big deal at my house.

I remember almost every teenage girl wearing a metal bracelet with a name of a missing or POW soldier’s name engraved on it.

(sidenote), the most dramatic difference I’ve noticed between then and now is now you have mass shootings with fellow citizens gunning down groups of people in a rampage. Except for the 1966 University of Texas Tower Shooting, this simply just did not happen.

Actually, the bracelets were worn in the 70’s

We still wonder about the reasons for the Viet Nam war. First was the zillions in profits for the banks (lending money to the US government) and the MIC - mass murder really pays! Next, moving the narco industry from SE Asia to south and central america to better serve what the master criminals knew would soon be a goldmine that only Midas could have dreamed of: the American drug market. In additia, the global usury criminals wanted to 'foreclose' the over-indebted French planters and re-sell (= re-mortgage) their properties, which they did. So it was a win-win situatia for many very rich satanists but not so good for the dead and maimed.

R90 The Civil Rights Act implemented in 1965 was actually Jack & Bobby's intention after his reelection in 1964. They knew that pushing legislation forward before the Nov 1964 election day would lose them the south and the election. I have read several books on this issue. Also, JFK had no intention of escalating the US involvement in Vietnam and intended to withdraw begin withdrawing those who were already there as "advisors" in 1965, which is likely the primary reason he was killed. The MIC and the generals wanted war in Southeast Asia.

The post WWII generation came home to a higher standard of living than they left behind. White and blue collar jobs were plentiful and paid well. Detroit was back up and running, making cars instead of tanks; unions were powerful and benefits were good. The Rosie the Riveter women were sent back home to keep house with all the great new labor saving devices, and start popping out babies. The GI bill helped send vets to college. TV depicted ideal family life, tellingly titled FATHER KNOWS BEST. Fathers were determined to put their war experiences behind them, no matter how horrific, and provide their offspring with the upwardly mobile benefits and a better life than they had.

It succeeded better than they could have predicted: Boomer kids were raised with better educations, more leisure, and best of all, discretionary income. All of which came with a price: higher education led to a questioning of "authority" in every arena" social mores, dress, music, film, sex (thanks to the Pill) and worst and most polarizing of all, Vietnam. 50s dads who had eagerly signed up in their teens for WWII in their generations' flurry of patriotic fervor could not comprehend their sons and daughters' opposition to the war, (no matter how undeclared and vague in terms of mission). This only fueled a deep schism between generations: "Love It or Leave It". EVERYTHING that was questioned or rebelled against by their kids became a threat to parents, even stupid shit like HAIR (no accident that a counterculture musical was created with this title!) and the worst taboo of all, SEX, (which had been furiously denied them in their youth). They saw kids as smart asses rather than smart, and were extremely threatened by the takeover of the culture by the huge emerging youth population. It didn't help that the war escalated beyond all reason and leaders began getting their heads blown off on TV.

Of course this was primarily a white middle class phenomenon; blacks had their own sets of issues - talk about threatening! They rioted and burned down cities, had huge marches and demonstrations, and worst of all, might have SEX with white girls! Guess who's coming to dinner! Once LBJ crumbled in defeat, they couldn't wait to elect a paranoid megalomaniac who pledged to restore "law and order" (sound familiar?)

I graduated from high school in May of 1968 and to this day I am GLAD I was there and saw it all. It was a time of great upheaval and social change in every way, and for the better. Boomers are often derided as selfish and entitled, but this country owes them a great debt in many ways.

Kennedy escalated the war during his presidency. It is wishful delusional thinking on people's parts to think he would have ended it. Too much money which he needed was being made. Johnson was going to stop it and made it worse. Nixon ran on stopping it and look what happened when he took over. This war made a ton of money for many powerful already rich people like the Iran Contra debacle and the Iraqi war.

And the sons of rich conservative families did not go into combat unless they individually chose to. Like Bush and Quayle they had the connections to get cushy positions. Not unlike during previous wars when the same thing would happen and during the civil war when if you were rich enough you could buy somebody to take your place as Teddy Roosevelt's father did.

Serving in the military was not as desired as admired as it is today.

Most forget the college deferment came with desegregation of the military. Once blacks were equal, the rich kids lost interest in serving.

What if you were married and had children. Were you still forced to go?

Also if you declared yourself a homo that got you out(No gays in the military) but I believe so many men were declaring their gay proclivities they eliminated that loophole. How ironic it would become an issue later.

When more cannon fodder is needed gays are indispensable.

If you married by something like Aug xx 1967 you got an exemption. Check old news photos for lines of people waiting to get married by that date.

The exemptions changed over the years - like you had to be the sole breadwinner, have children, at one time, etc. Not sure when exemptions changed.

If you DIDN'T register as required and you were found out you went to the head of the class to be inducted. Get in that bus, young man!

I'm not sure how accurate this was but there was a rumor that the wealthy, or those with means and knowledge, sent their sons overseas so they would be there when they needed to legally register. Those who registered at embassies while overseas supposedly were part of a draft section that never got called up.

I posted above men are still required to register for the draft. It was doubly shocking to me as I never did it and I turned 18 years ago. I don't know of any friend of that period doing it either.

Really, R101? Did you apply for any federal benefits like student loans?

My parents were married in '69 and my dad still had to go. He put it off with college deferment as long as he could. Fortunately he got posted in a lab and out of the action.

JFK had decided to get out of Vietnam. He had actually dictated a memo before leaving for Dallas. LBJ saw it and decided to ignore it.

R102 No. But I have had dealings with the government, it never came up, and I turned 18 after the draft had ended so I assumed everything was ok. Also nobody ever asked me 'Did you register for the draft?'

We could use a good ol fashioned presidential assassination in 2018!

I would throw a dinner and cocktail party after!

R94, whatever the Kennedys's intentions, they were not going to the break the logjam of opposition of the southern members of their congressional delegation who chaired so many of the key committees. Only Johnson - admittedly with the assistance of a martyred president - was going to get substantial civil rights legislation enacted in that era.

r100 = Dick Cheney

This thread gives me a bit of hope that people will keep yelling and screaming till the Dump family is in legirons, or repatriated to Guantanamo.

Thanks to everyone who lived through this time for weighing in. This is a great thread.

R108, 😂😂😂. Please explain. I'm at a loss.

Yes, I was in Osaka and my mother started screaming that Bobby Kennedy was dead. We were anchored off shore, a big merchant ship. As I ran up to see mom, we collided with a Japanese ship and nearly had to evacuate. We were traumatized. I was only 8, sister was 4. The Japanese ship also lost it when they heard about RFKs’ death. Terrible time. All over the world.

R110 Dick Cheney was known as a wealthy draft avoider-deferee-dodger.

I was born.

That site linked above entitled Myths about Vietnam War was quite interesting. I too bought into the claim that black boys and men were disproportionately represented and were basically used as cannon fodder. Apparently the proportion of KIAs in Vietnam exactly matched the population breakdown. 12% of men killed were back and the rest were called white(I don't think we were categorizing Latinos, Pac Islanders and Asians separately back then.

We were 6 years old for most of 1968.

R114 --

One of the black Vietnam War vets at work told me the NVA was leafletting US held areas telling the black US sokdies and Marines that they were just pawns and csnnonfodder for the white power structure, and that blacks at home were rioting, and they should too, and ride against white evil, etc.

In response, Westmoreland gathered whole companies of blacks to attack the NVA to send a message back. This only happened for a short time, but it looked like only the blacks were being used for combat.

Westmoreland = now burning peacefully in hell.